| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: thought, to truth.--Amicus Plato, my father would say, construing the words
to my uncle Toby, as he went along, Amicus Plato; that is, Dinah was my
aunt;--sed magis amica veritas--but Truth is my sister.
This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source
of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of
family disgrace recorded,--and the other would scarce ever let a day pass
to an end without some hint at it.
For God's sake, my uncle Toby would cry,--and for my sake, and for all our
sakes, my dear brother Shandy,--do let this story of our aunt's and her
ashes sleep in peace;--how can you,--how can you have so little feeling and
compassion for the character of our family?--What is the character of a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: slowly-clicking sabots, and the beautiful view of snowy Alps
and purple Jura at either end of the little street. The day
was brilliant; early spring was in the air and in the sunshine,
and the winter's damp was trickling out of the cottage eaves.
It was birth and brightness for all nature, even for chirping
chickens and waddling goslings, and it was to be death and
burial for poor, foolish, generous, delightful Bellegarde.
Newman walked as far as the village church, and went
into the small grave-yard beside it, where he sat down and
looked at the awkward tablets which were planted around.
They were all sordid and hideous, and Newman could
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: water, at the same time, often rushed with great force up the
rudder-case, and, forcing up the valve of the water-closet,
the floor of his cabin was at times laid under water. The
gale continued to increase, and the vessel rolled and pitched
in such a manner that the hawser by which the tender was made
fast to the buoy snapped, and she went adrift. In the act of
swinging round to the wind she shipped a very heavy sea, which
greatly alarmed the artificers, who imagined that we had got
upon the rock; but this, from the direction of the wind, was
impossible. The writer, however, sprung upon deck, where he
found the sailors busily employed in rigging out the bowsprit
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